I have a hatred of powder. The touch of soft, dusty things: chalk (which makes it quite hard as a teacher); peaches, even velvet; icing sugar, dried concrete. The ashes of incense: : : : horror to the touch. Dried mud – I have an image of myself as a first year student at university, running in from a rainstorm with the mud starting to cake and dry on my hands and seeing myself – my face captured in a mirror in the hallway – as I ran desperately towards the sink to wash it off, and I saw in the reflection a madman, such was my instinctive repulsion to this particular texture that I cannot; cannot abide; the silky dry feeling of hands on an umbrella when the rain has evaporated, the shudder and panicked reaching for the vaseline, always stored on my person, scented, as you know; essential; but worst, by far the most unbearable; the feeling of flour, my bête noire of all bête noires which I cannot touch and could not touch even if you paid me and which is probably my Orwellian Room 101.
It is also my sister’s. She cannot abide it. Strange – I have never really come across another person with my particular neurosis. Many people find softness, and dryness, soothing: sand on the beach and the softening aspect between your toes as you sit on the promenade and swing your feet together in the summer air; something pleasant for them; something I can relate to intellectually but not in personal practice (inside, in my case, I am screaming at the clemency of the salt-gone moisture, the papery, strokey skin that makes me just want to plunge my feet back hysterically, immediately into the sea water, or smother my whole body with sun lotion – viscous, sticky, sheer relief).
We were there, somewhere on holiday together in the south of England as a teenager and a child, in the sun on the pier and one of us, I can’t remember which, suddenly said that they detested the feeling of the powdery sand, that it was intolerable, and the other was totally amazed that their sibling understood exactly the feeling that had never been spoken out aloud before (the almost hilarity when you discover that you are not alone in your foibles, that another person gets it, that you can laugh about it, detail the particulars, no matter how weird or unusual it may be to the rest of the world). She, also, cannot tolerate any form of powdered texture whatsoever, nor any other similarly feeling material, and in fact was as a teenager forced to even go into hypnotherapy when her horror of toilet paper – the dryness, the smoothness….I also really don’t like the really ‘high quality’ satiny, tissues that make me cringe and shiver slightly, the snail-like crunch of cotton wool (ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!), but the rougher varieties of paper are okay for me, fortunately, and I never had to go this far. In my sister’s case, however, this phobia of certain textures was getting in the way of her living and at the time we happened to be living across the road from a doctor and hypnotherapist who got rid of her terror with a couple of sessions under suggested unconsciousness, enough to allow her to live normally, even if she still, like me, abhors, and will always abhor, the feeling of flour between the fingers. This is torture.
I have no real idea of the causes of this phobia. There was never any trauma related to powder as children, as far as I remember, save possibly the big Christmas family parties we used to have with our aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents when they were all alive, and we would have party games: a raucous, happy time that I remember quite fondly as Queen, everyone’s favourite, would rock on in the background: musical chairs – hilarious and thrilling, some strange game involving floppy hats; but then the flour cake game, a kind of jenga of the powder horror, where a cake made solely of tightly-packed flour granules would have a coin placed on it right in the middle, and you went round in turns taking slices out of the cake with a large knife, getting more and more precarious, the woahs and well-meaning terror increasing, the coin balancing periously on the precipice until the white cliffs of dover would come crumbling down in an avalanche of the finest, tooth-clutching powder, and the unlucky person who had caused the snowfall would have to thrust his or her face into the ‘hilarious’, knee-trembling powder cloud and retrieve the cold, metallic, flour-covered coin with their mouth. I could no more do this now than chew the head off a live snake, but I know that I did then, and just writing about it now is making me writhe on the sofa where I sit, daub my hands liberally with my three orange hand balm and rub them all over as a crucial, wettening, antidote.
My sister, to my knowledge, never participated in this game, so her own loathing of powdery textures is something of a mystery. I know for sure that we were both startled to learn of each other’s abnormality down on the beach: that was a revelation. I know that most people are directly the opposite; they loathe slime, or the stickiness of an apple, whereas I could delve my hands into a jar of honey and not give a damn; I would just lick it off. But talcy, chalky substances make my organs clinch – I could lose my mind. In the classroom I have learned to deal with the holding of a piece of chalk, as it scrapes on the board, even if the gradually amassing powder around me (and the brush of half blunt pencils on paper scratching all around me – revolting )– means I sometimes have to leave and wash my hands or else reach for my citrus scented goo to counter it. One time, though, on a school summer camp, probably about fifteen years ago, I was outed. Embarrassed. For the majority of the trip I think I had looked to the students more like a super hero: making boats with them, swimming and pulling them out in the lake, building fires, hiking for miles, singing in the moonlight, but it all came undone one day when we had to walk into a cave underground (I couldn’t – I am claustrophobic, but fortunately each team had two leaders), and then of course there was the afternoon team activity where we had to learn to make some kind of local noodles, instructed by locals who were known for their mastery of the regional speciality and were taking us through it all, step by doughy step. I tried to overcome my utter revulsion of the huge tub of beckoning flour, for the sake of the kids, feeling my innards contract at the thought of it, and did gamely actually dip a finger or two into the choking, moistureless, morass, but then felt so intuitely repulsed by its touch that I think I might have actually screamed. Everyone looked at me amazed. I simply couldn’t help the kids with making the soba for the competition; I was no longer a leader, it was an impossibility, and I had to just stand by helplessly as we came in last position for our undercooked strips of moingy, still dusty, inedible flour ribbons.
*
The irony of all this of course, this poudrephobie, is that, when it comes to perfume, I truly do love and adore powdery fragrances. Possibly more than any other type. What is simply suggested in perfume, the glow and the tactility of the pulverous, veil of powdered notes, a hint of the texture of the actualized, physical powder but without the literalness of its repugnant touch, for me creates an aura, almost a halo, of impenetrability, a snuggling comfort. There is a grandeur, a callow pompousness in dressing freshly washed skin with ambery, caressing poudres: in recent weeks I have felt like imperial lounge lizard at the perruqued court of Marie Antoinette as I go outside in my winter coats, deliciously swathed in a number of rich, granular indulgences worn together: Fragonard’s delectable Rêve Indien in parfum, a glowworm of Shalimar-like resonances without the Johnson’s baby’s bottom – more male; insistent; taut; and on my blood wine coloured cashmere red scarf, lashings and copious sprays of the original Hermès Rouge eau de toilette with its rose powder; naughty base unguents and lipstick smeared hyacinths: when I walk out into the cold I feel emboldened and outrageous, but also more serene: enwrapped, swaddled; cocooned.
*
Yesterday, I walked down the hill from where we live to the station for the first time in over a year and a half. Finally. A very steep incline at the top, enough to make people coming to our house huff and puff and complain about how uphill it is, and which was actually quite difficult, and painful, for me to navigate – I held onto Duncan for the first part and then managed when it gradually became more straight and easier to walk along and was, in truth, disappointed that it hadn’t been easier. But how wonderful to even have done it, and then to have walked about the whole day sans stick; how pleasing to inhale the cold, blood-stirring air and see the winter light glinting through the trees while simultaneously enjoying the hints of all my recently worn perfumes still lingering on my clothes: a new old bottle of Cartier Must that I found in an antique shop in Yokohama: vanillic, dense, and yes powdery, but cut through with galbanum; edible, like the vintage parfum of Vol De Nuit I also got yesterday and had set my heart on when I saw it in the window but couldn’t afford to buy until pay day, yesterday, when I also acquired a beautiful old bottle of Coty’s golden and spiced powder L’Origan in vintage eau de toilette, and to cap it all off a vintage eau de cologne bottle of Jean Charles Brosseau’s Ombre Rose, in my opinion the finest format of this perfume, all crepuscular, shadowed roses with an almost saline powderiness like the sweat of skin; so beautifully Japanese, like the sachets of incense that are tucked by ladies, still, into kimono in Kyoto, where clandestine pouches of pulverized incense are hidden in drawers and the folds of clothes and hair, and where a puff of invisible powder has all the suggestibility and eroticism of a hinted at love affair. Look. Inhale: but do not touch.
The Black Narcissus 
How do you feel about powdery scents? I love so many. Heritage eau de parfum, all the more modern contenders like Teint De Neige…any other recommendations I should know about?
And do you find this texture phobia bizarre or can you relate?
An exciting post! Strange, incomprehensible revelations; slight mortification of peeping behind curtains; the frisson of exhibitionism/voyerism. In a remote way I was reminded of Capote’s „Other Voices, Other Rooms“–I’m not really sure why? Don‘t get me wrong: it is so much deeper and more satisfactory, so infinitely more personal, intimate, human to find out these „things“ about a person than just reading that they have a penchant for powdery scents.
I did think it added to it : the tension…
And I love that novel, by the way…
You ask: can I relate? No and yes. No, as I love baking or making pasta; as I adore the soothing, silken touch of talcum powder. Yes, as there can be a slightly disgusting rasp of cheap artificial „velvet“ which to my mind feels of glass wool. Sometimes there are carpets which have a similarly revolting feel.
And finally: I adore powdery scents. Iris comes to mind—and isn‘t it strange that this morning I used Bois de farine?? As I was in Berlin I thought I‘d have to wear a slightly more outré perfume, no mumsy French rose perfume.
It’s called Sensory Integration Dysfunction.
I too like powdery scents.
I can’t believe my senses are dysfunctional – more like hyperfunctional!
Yes, that is part of the dysfunction…you can have an overactive sensory system which is why it is so bothersome to you. You can also have an underactive system in which your body craves sensory input…or you can have a combo of both (that would be me)
As I read this, I could not help but think of how tortured you were post surgery, being deprived of water. I remember you talking about your hatred and fear of dehydration. The absence of moisture, the water of life, is anathema to you.
My favorite powdery scents are Peut Etre by Lancome, Kus Kus by Bourbon French, and Perlerette by Volnay.
And I just ordered a mini of the Reve Indien because it sounds so perfect for me.
I am so happy to hear of your gaining strength and confidence ambulating difficult terrain. YAY!
Thank you.
And please tell me more about these three tantalizing scents. I think I encountered Kus Kus in New Orleans but don’t remember it.
You are right about the dehydration thing though. For whatever reason, they must be linked.
Perlerette is super powdery iris and violet. It is sweet, very feminine, and yummy. Kus Kus is a musk bomb with spices and gobs of powder. Huge projection, too. Peut Etre is musky iris with a sweet vanilla powder drydown. Of the three Perlerette is the purest powder.
So glad you were able to walk that challenging hill! I am intrigued by your powder-phobia; it’s clear from your blog that you have highly reactive senses. Some of that serves you well (very sensitive sense of smell). I guess the rest of it is the price one pays for enjoying a heightened sensibility, which is fine as long as it doesn’t impede daily life! Re powdery scents: Chanel No. 22 is often described as “powdery”, probably because of the strong presence of iris, and I adore it. What do you think of the various “poudree” flankers of recent years?
I think as long as I don’t aim for a late start career as a baker or patissier I should be fine.
As for No 22, EXACTLY. This piece was originally meant to be much longer and encompass much more, and I spilled some of the Chanel extrait on my thermal underwear and loved it all day
I meant to include it. To me it smells like powdery cherries.
lol, I love the idea of Chanel 22 extrait on one’s thermal underwear! That’s worth a post in and of itself!
I do love powdery scents…Teint De Neige being a favorite. I wish I still had Ombre Rose…that one was almost a signature scent for me for quite some time.
If there were no postal restrictions I would send it to you. It’s very unique, isn’t it? I find it quite haunting.
It’s an interesting question what ‘powder’ smells like, isn’t it? Powders were scented with the most loved scents of the 20s and 30s, which now represent a perfume golden age, or there’s a 1960s-80s cosmetic nostalgia which kicks in with Ombre Rose etc. Nothing which actually has to do with the qualities of powdery things themselves. I wonder what 18th century hair powder would have smelled like.
Are there any perfumes which give you the horrors because instead of having that a scent that people have added to powder, they have a dry talcy feel instead? It sounds a difficult and rather limiting phobia; hope hypnotherapy would help if you choose to try it.
It’s actually not problematic as long as there is Vaseline about ( as there always is, scented with lemon or oranges, which actually also brings out powdery perfumes beautifully as a contrast): I have got used to chalk because I had to. Flour is impossible though; and sometimes I touch an ultra smooth Japanese sweet covered in some kind of powder without realizing and recoil immediately. I feel it in my teeth.
Oh, now I relate! It’s that cornstarch feeling. It’s the excruciatingly dry, almost squeaky sensation, a high pitch directed to the nerves. I know those gelatinous Japanese sweets and can feel that white powder on my molars right now. Yech.
Yes: that squeakiness could kill me.
Another brilliant batch of paragraphs from you, dear Neil. Lots of it downright lyrical.
” . . . a vintage eau de cologne bottle of Jean Charles Brosseau’s Ombre Rose, in my opinion the finest format of this perfume, all crepuscular, shadowed roses with an almost saline powderiness like the sweat of skin; so beautifully Japanese, like the sachets of incense that are tucked by ladies, still, into kimono in Kyoto, where clandestine pouches of pulverized incense are hidden in drawers and the folds of clothes and hair, and where a puff of invisible powder has all the suggestibility and eroticism of a hinted at love affair. Look. Inhale: but do not touch.”
Besides the beauty of the piece, I loved all the ideas. The powder phobia you share with your sister, your seemingly-contradictory love of powder in fragrance — wouldn’t that have been terrible, rotten luck if your phobia did in fact extend to perfume? — and your brave walk downhill with increasingly cooperative knees. It’s been a slog, I know, doubly so (at least) because you did them both at once, but how excellent that they ARE both done and you don’t have to repeat the process and can get on with it without the spectre of a second surgery and recovery.
I cut my teeth on powdery scents. It used to be my mantra at the shops when I was in my teens and twenties: “I’m looking for something really, really powdery.” Back in the stone ages, most sales assistants didn’t know what I was talking about, the nomenclature too obscure, and I myself had never read that as a descriptor, but it was so clear to me that that’s what I was sensing: something dense, opaque, dry/furry, the-opposite-of-even-slightly-damp. To think that fragrance had a texture was easy for me to grasp in my solitary, autodidactic way. What epitomized powdery for me in those days was Jean d’Albret’s Casaque and Chanel N°22. Today, I’d include things like Chanel Misia, Parfumerie Generale Louanges Profanes and Penhaligon’s Iris Prima.
I did find this promising in view of the bottle that is labouring its way to me via an over-loaded postal system: ” . . . and on my blood wine coloured cashmere red scarf, lashings and copious sprays of the original Hermès Rouge eau de toilette with its rose powder; naughty base unguents and lipstick smeared hyacinths.” Can’t hardly wait.
If you don’t at least like it I will be very surprised. I find it luscious and beautiful.
And you describe the powder desire in perfume PERFECTLY : it ‘S that dense/opaque, dry/furry thing you describe that illuminates the air around you and feels so tactile despite its invisibility.
Oh, yes, and Ombre Rose was an early love as well. Reminds me, I found a bottle of vintage Houbigant Lutece parfum at the flea market this summer and I thought it gave Ombre Rose a run for its money in the powder department. Very rich. Rather good, actually.
I have never smelled that but love the name – Lutece.
A vintage bottle may well turn up in your travels, knowing your good fortune. It out-powders Ombre Rose; the orris is at the forefront and the quality is glorious. The rosewood note connects the two. But do look for the Houbigant, not the lame Dana reissue. Even the edp is good and plush.
I seem to be your opposite: I love baking and the tactile feel of powdery things but don’t care for it in my perfumes. My nemesis is gooey, slimy things, which is more typical I suppose.
Congratulations on making it down the hill!
And back up again last night!
I cannot thank you enough for putting this utterly strange feeling into words!
Me and my sister have had the exact same “phobia” for our whole lives. It must have started when we were supposed to play in the sandbox as children but we would just cry and refuse to touch the sand. Ever since we have avoided touching sand, flour, chalk, dusty surfaces by all means… Even thinking about it gives me shivers. Two scenarios that keep my up at night:
– walking on the beach and the sand stays on my feet and slowly dries them out. UUUHGH!
– touching a hold on the climbing wall that is covered with dusty chalk and not being able to wash my hands immediately because I’m 10 meters from the ground (in the climbing gym everyone uses excessive amounts of chalk to powders their hands for a better grip)…
We have never ever come across any other person who shares or understands this “fear”, so reading about your experiences is really exciting and makes me feel less like a fool 🙂 Thank you again for sharing your thoughts.
My question: Have you ever considered therapy just like your sister did?
Greetings from Germany (and sorry for my imperfect English)!
Hi: it is fascinating, I agree, to read of people who have similar unusual phobias (your climbing frame with the dusty chalk is making me feel sick!) – fortunately, my horror is completely bearable as long as I have vaseline on me at all times (if I don’t I start to panic). Grease kills powder!
I’m grateful that I can relate to someone who has the same phobia from this roughness,soothing and velvet type of things.
For me it has been going on from my childhood.So there’s a festival called holi (India) in which one used to put colored powder. So basically it was like a nightmare for me. I used to lock myself in my room,and what really pisses me off when others say you’re just overreacting.I was so uncomfortable with those stuffs that when I accidentally get some powder I used to rub my face,hands anywhere even if it bleeds.The powdered colored faces still haunts me.
I can control the fear from these things as I’m growing up and always try to stay away from this things. But I’m extremely scared from a day that comes every year in which the dry,rough stuffs that I stay away from that I hate lefts me terrified.
Anyways it gives me a hope that I can relate to someone thanks for sharing your fears….it has given me some strength……
(And I apologize for my imperfect English)….
I sympathize, I really do. Flour is the worst for me: 100% unbearable. I also wouldn’t have been able to stand the coloured powder at Holi. Also, as you say, most people just can’t understand this phobia – it is not usually even in the long lists of phobias published by psychologists. If I don’t have vaseline or some kind of greasy cream in my pocket I feel uneasy, even panicked.